Metro

Mosque sheik-up

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The Muslim leader behind the beleaguered Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero is being sidelined as part of a major leadership shakeup, organizers of the controversial project announced yesterday.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf will no longer be the chief religious figure in the project — though he will still play a lesser, behind-the-scenes, role in support of the planned 13-story, $100 million facility, officials said.

Rauf’s replacement, Imam Abdallah Adhami, who has been active in New York’s Muslim community, will now handle religious programming for the project, known as Park51.

Park51 organizers downplayed Rauf’s diminished role — emphasizing the imam has just launched a nationwide tour on interfaith relations. He will address the Islamic Society in North America’s diversity conference today in Detroit.

They also note he remains on Park51’s board of directors.

There’s been speculation since the summer that relations had soured between Rauf and Sharif El-Gamal, the president and chief developer of Park51.

“It is an honor for me, personally, to welcome Imam Adhami to our team. I look forward to his leadership and assistance in the development of Park51,” El-Gamal said.

Born in Washington, Adhami has a degree in architecture from Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute.

Critics of the project pointed out that Adhami has a link to Imam Siraj Wahhaj, of Brooklyn, whom prosecutors fingered as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Wahhaj also was a character witness in the trial of convicted terror plotter Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman.

Adhami designed Wahhaj’s Brooklyn mosque, Masjid al Taqwa. Wahhaj also is highlighted on an Adhami-created Web site, Sakeenah.org.

Adhami called the appointment “an extraordinary opportunity to be a key adviser on a project going forward that has enormous creative and healing potential.”

Tim Brown, a retired firefighter who responded to the 9/11 attacks and has sued to block the mosque, said it sounded like Park51 and Rauf “got a divorce.”

“Imam Rauf can’t raise money needed for the project. He’s toxic. He’s only hurt the 9/11 survivors, not built bridges,” Brown said.

Brown was troubled by Adhami’s link toWahhaj.

“Siraj Wahhaj is as radical as you can get,” he said.

carl.campanile@nypost.com